Costs and Benefits

[james_davis_nicoll]

Suppose one was near a large, old country that was largely cut-off from external trade (using Canada as the norm) and suppose that various of their social traditions resulted in a somewhat decreased lifespan. If opening the country to trade might reasonably be expected to undermine the social patterns that lead to decreased lifespans, how does one calculate how many people in the large old country could suffer unrequested lifespan truncation without outweighing the total lifespan gained? Is it as simple as saying "They live on average 77.43 years. After being opened, they may live 79.96 years (to pick values out of the hat), an increase of one part in 30. Therefore as long as the shrinkage getting there is no more than one part in 30, this is a net gain for the people in the old, large country."

Comments

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

This presupposes that living longer = living better

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Simple experimentation involving a sniper rifle, the roof of a tall building and a panicked crowd indicates to me that to a first approximation, people do prefer to live longer. So does an examination of medical expenditures: people are willing to spend vast amounts of money in their final years to keep a worn-out body going a just little longer, even when living cannot be pleasant.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure this means living longer = better, but rather simply demonstrates humanity's fear of death, which is fear of the unknown, fear of what's hiding in the dark/around the corner/behind the door.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

How do you measure "better"? And how irrational is it to want to avoid death, given that it means the complete and utter destruction of all the information that is a person (save for other people's flawed memories and various records without the illusion of personal continuity)?

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

My definition of better means that one can reasonably continue to enjoy one's life, meaning that one is not senile, one still has control over one's bodily functions, etc.

Don't get me wrong - Death/dying is actually my greatest fear. But I don't think I would want to live for an additional fifteen years if I was confined to a bed or unable to eat or speak coherently, etc.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

That's how to calculate the lifespan tradeoff, yes. I'm not sure that such simple arithmetic can be enough evidence to justify doing things that will *cut off* a number of lives, though.

Besides, is that the right metric? People will risk their lives to decrease the amount of time they spend sitting in their car, for example (speeding).

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

It's not clear to me that the people who speed understand that they are risking their lives, though. Don't virtually all drivers think that they are better than average?

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Certainly most drivers think they are above average.

I've seen many people making the argument that the lives saved by the 55MPH speed limit were less important than the time wasted -- just on a simple comparison of hours of life not driving. That seems to suggest that those people, at least, *did* understand that driving faster caused more fatalities, and still favored higher speed limits.

cost/benefit analysis of speeding...

[(Anonymous)]

...cost/benefit analysis being something bored, impatient, aggressively impersonalized people typically don't do well (extrapolationg from myself, of course).

My philosophical position on rational driving behavior and my actual performance behind the wheel on the freeway at rush hour when the MORON IN FRONT OF ME WON'T CLOSE IT UP, , um, differ a bit.

Talking about people in groups, people in general, or depressingly often even the generally intelligent ones (such as me, yet another obviously above-average driver) as if they think is a classic GIGO situation: the results are baffling and frustration, but reflect observable reality poorly.

Pete Newell (still too lazy to set up a livejournal)